Got a Question – Use the Web to Get an Answer

Everywhere questions,
originally uploaded by DoBeRaGi.

Where do you go to answer some of the most common business questions?

You'd be surprised at where the answers are. Today, I thought it might be fun to pull out some surprisingly good free online sources of good marketing intelligence on everything from new product ideas, article research or even setting a price.

General Questions and Where and How to Get Answers

You have an idea that you'd like to explore

• LinkedIn has a Question and Answer feature which I really like.  Even John McCain asked a question! You can ask your question "passively" by just posting it and seeing who answers.  Or you can ask your question directly to specific people in your contact group.  Your question will be "up" for 7 days.  You can close it sooner than that if you like.  You can specify which groups you would like to answer your question.  For example, you can chose industry, geographic region and function.  I asked a marketing and sales question both passively and actively and was even able to direct responses to my blog.  I also like that I could ask my large contact list without "spamming" them with Outlook.
• Facebook has the option to join groups.  You can post questions to the group and people will happily give you feedback.
• Twitter is also a great source of opinion on any topic.  But remember – you need to be following and follow several hundred people to get a handful of responses. If you don't have a good following – you can still use TweetDeck to search twitter posts from experts on the subject and connect with them.

Demographics – Profiling Your Potential Customer

• Facebook is a surprising source of demographic information (of their audience).  By simply filling out an advertising form for any product or service, Facebook will tell you the size of their audience that matches those characteristics.
• ESRI Data – You will want to spend all day on this thing, but contain yourself.  Simnply enter the zip code that you are interested in and it will profile the inhabitants right down to what they have for breakfast.  This is ideal for retailers or any small business that's looking to target a specific geographic region.

Pricing and Response Measurement Questions

• eBay is a great way to do some pricing research.  Simply describe your product, take a picture if it's appropriate.  In fact, think about describing your product in several different ways and see which price point gets the best response.

What are some of the creative ways YOU collect information on the web?